Fit for a Super Hero?
This track is truly The ‘Marmite’ track of the early 80s. Reaching number 2 in The UK in 1981, it was however voted by The Rock Lists Album publication as the ‘readers least favourite single of that year.’ The track was initially issued in limited numbers by One Ten Records, Radio Clyde prompted a rush of orders after it playlisted the track. Warner Brothers then stepped in with a 7 album deal.
Laurie Anderson ( Born Laurie Phillips Anderson) is an American, experimental performer who was initially trained as a sculptor but is a influential writer and composer. She was not widely known until the release of O Superman. She developed a Violin which uses magnetic tape instead of horse hair on the bow and a microphone, know as the talking stick, which allows many different sounds to be replicated, as for O Superman.
The song is a cover of a song taken from a 1885 (Le Cid) Opera and has influences from another written in 1902 (Le Jonleur de Notre Dame) The track contains the tweeting of birds and subtle saxaphone. It is of course, at 8 minutes and Twenty One Seconds, one of the longest 7 inch singles of the 1980S.
Two weeks after the 9/11 attacks a live recording of O Superman was made in New York City. The words Here Come the Planes, They’re Americal Planes, Mase in America took on enormous significance
Love it or Hate it, this single deserves 80slegend status.
Short URL: http://80slegends.com/?p=1022
Posted by 80sHog
on Jul 26 2011 Filed under 80's Buzz, Headline, Uncategorized.
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